1. Field of the Invention
Various embodiments of the disclosed invention generally relate to systems and methods for supporting regulatory requirements for the distribution of controlled and non-controlled items such as, for example, non-controlled prescriptions (Rx), medical devices, and controlled substances in countries such as the United States and Canada.
2. Description of Related Art
In the United States, distributors of controlled substances are required to be registered by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). A controlled substance is generally understood to be a drug or chemical substance whose possession and use are regulated under the United States' Controlled Substances Act, such as, for instance, many prescription medications and narcotic drugs. Under federal regulations, registered distributors must accurately verify customer licenses and also design and operate a system to identify and report suspicious orders of controlled substances. Suspicious orders may include non-limiting examples such as orders of unusual size, orders deviating substantially from a normal pattern, orders of unusual frequency, and the like. Failure to effectively verify licenses and to diligently minimize the occurrence of suspicious order approvals may result in fines and/or loss of privilege to ship such substances.
In the past, drug distributors have instituted various stand-alone applications designed to verify license data and/or identify suspicious orders. With regard to the latter, a simple, threshold-based calculation is applied in many instances. For example, a customer may be assigned a monthly threshold for each family of controlled substances and if the customer attempts to place an order that exceeds its monthly threshold, the order is flagged as suspicious. However, such approaches simply set a number value that does not typically automatically adjust over time as customer patterns evolve. Further, such approaches do not consider other customers or clients of the same type who may be placing orders for controlled substances within the same family. Such systems oftentimes do not concurrently verify license status at the time of evaluating an order's suspicious nature. As a result, a customer's license may not be valid, or their predetermined threshold may not be as accurate or up to date, as viewed across a broader sample of customers over time.
Therefore, a need exists for an improved system and method for verifying license data and identifying suspicious orders for a customer in which the system and method automatically check license data and account for historical order information across a broad sampling of customers and clients.